Organized Crime Prosecutions for July 2013

Number Latest Month

18

Number Previous Month

37

Percent Change from 1 year ago

3.8

Percent Change from 5 years ago

-35.7

Table 1: Criminal Organized Crime Prosecutions

The latest available data from the Justice Department show that during July 2013 the government reported 18 new organized crime prosecutions.
According to the case-by-case information analyzed by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), this number is down from 37 the previous month.

The comparisons of the number of defendants charged with organized crime-related offenses are based on case-by-case information obtained by TRAC under the Freedom
of Information Act from the Executive Office for United States Attorneys. (See Table 2)

When monthly 2013 prosecutions of this type are compared with those of the same period in
the previous year, the number of filings was up (3.8 percent).
Prosecutions over the past year are still much lower than they were five years ago.
Overall, the data show that prosecutions of this type are down 35.7 percent from levels reported in 2008.

Figure 1: Monthly trends in organized crime prosecutions

The decrease from the levels five years ago in organized crime prosecutions for these matters is shown more clearly in Figure 2.
The vertical bars in Figure 2
represent the number of organized crime prosecutions of this type recorded on a month-to-month
basis. Where a prosecution was initially filed in U.S. Magistrate Court and then transferred to the U.S. District Court,
the magistrate filing date was used since this provides an earlier indicator of actual trends.
The superimposed line on the bars plots the six-month moving average so
that natural fluctuations are smoothed out. To view trends year-by-year rather than month-by-month, see TRAC's annual report series for a broader picture.